Recent scholarship has done much to document the experiences of women in science, but there has been little comparable scholarship on Black Americans’ experiences and contributions, and even less on Black women scientists. Historians of American science, while occasionally paying lip service to the Black participant, have failed to integrate their contributions and participation into their work.
White scholars routinely point to the so-called marginal participation of Blacks in science as the typical justification for their neglect in histories of American science. While white historians speak about the hardships Blacks faced, they make little effort to identify or discuss those who did participate. Recent studies indicate that by the early 1980s, Black females had outstripped Black males in the attainment of doctorates, in disciplines other than the sciences, but that despite this female advantage, the numbers of Black women obtaining advanced degrees in the sciences did not increase. Considering the lack of historical work done on Black women scientists to date, this information should not come as a surprise.
There has been work devoted to outstanding individuals like Tuskegee, Carver, and others, but these works generally fall into a conventional historical vein which document the triumph of an against the odds type of individual, who just happened to be a scientist. The science is treated, if at all, in a largely peripheral manner. In recent years, major efforts have been made to illuminate the history of white women in the sciences. An honest attempt to illuminate the experiences of Black women scientists, particularly in terms of their struggles, strategies, successes, and scientific work, could make a significant contribution -both to efforts aimed at increasing the participation of minorities in the sciences and to the history of science in America.
In the biographical sketches included in this volume, the lives and career paths of more than 100 Black women scientists are examined; these include women in the fields of anatomy, astronautics and space science, anthropology, biochemistry, biology, botany, chemistry, geology, marine biology, mathematics, medicine, nutrition, pharmacology, psychology, physics, and zoology. The majority of these women possessed the doctorate (Ph. D.), but also included are some women who had medical degrees (M. D.). Although primary source materials were elusive, Wini Warren was able to locate and rely heavily upon primary sources, extant personal accounts; interviews, conducted either in person, by mail, or telephone; personal papers, either in a woman’s own possession or housed in an archive, including publications, correspondence, curricular vitae and other memorabilia; family papers and photographs; and the records housed at schools and other institutions.
Black women scientists in the United States is an invaluable aid to researchers, librarians, teachers and general readers.